Ammunition suppliers say the shortage is due to several factors, including the sheer volume of ammunition heading overseas to fight wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But they also say the shortage — as well as a sharp rise in gun sales — coincided with the election of President Obama, fueled by fears his administration would usher in more restrictive gun laws.
"It started the day that Obama got elected," Johnny Dury, who owns Dury's Gun Shop in San Antonio, tells NPR's Michele Norris. "It is when everything just went crazy in the gun business."
Dury says people are buying guns as well as ammunition, creating a shortage of both. He says people are buying the guns to protect themselves because they perceive Obama's policies as socialist and rewarding those "people who are not working hard." They are also afraid, he says, of more restrictive gun laws.
"Everybody was scared he was going to take the ammo away or he was going to tax it out of sight on the prices," Dury says. "So people started stocking up, buying half a lifetime to a lifetime supply of ammo all at one time."
Atleast Obama will not have to bailout the ammo industry.